Book: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Genre: speculative fiction (magical fantasy)
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Yes, I do think this one is getting five stars, simply for how it surprised me with how much I loved it and how glued to it I was.. and how I loved pretty much everything about it. Yeah, that's a five star book I'd say!
It's about our guy who is a magical traveler between worlds... these worlds are three different Londons... Gray London where there is no magic, Red London where magic flourishes, and White London where magic has taken over. There's also Black London, a place that the other three have shut themselves off from due to the fact that very very dark magic has destroyed it.
When a relic of that dark city appears, our traveler (Kell) ends up with the responsibility of getting it back... hopefully before the darkness spreads and destroys these other three Londons.
He ends up partnering with a girl from Gray London, who knows nothing about magic, but is extremely savvy and capable, and who ends up saving his life many times over. They bond, and face this evil together.
Sounds simple in its summary, yeah? But the magic system is crazy awesome. The writing is beautiful and so perfectly descriptive. The characters are amazingly real. There's another traveler who I really felt for... and became so sympathetic for, even though he is a very very bad boy. But the author is able to easily make us care about him. I love that. His name made me think of a person in real life that I know who also uses that name, and I think that made me picture HIM as that character and then it made the agony for him even worse.
It's a very violent and dark book. As I said on Instagram, the title does not lie. There is very dark stuff going on here. It's creepy and scary and disturbing. (We picked this one for our October book club for a reason!)
But SO GOOD!
Anyway. I was hooked fast and loved it all. Is this a series? I haven't looked it up yet, but it feels like there could totally be more to this story! (Oh nevermind, Goodreads says it's Shades of Magic #1, plain as day. Well. So I guess I'll be reading more of this stuff!) (Oh gosh, there's a TON of books based on this one.. .what have I done???? )
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